UPDATE: Here are the photos from today’s festivities on Flickr:Cherry Blossom Parade 2009
It was a HOT beautiful day and the kids did great!

Ohayo-gozaimasu!
Just in case you are heading to J-town for the Cherry Blossom Festival and Parade this weekend…

On Sunday 4/19 @ 1pm, we will be marching in the parade down Post Street! Look for the kids/families of Rosa Parks JBBP (Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program) singing along to a customized, Japanese-ized version of “We Are Family.”

Our group is #14, sort of near the front of the parade (just a few back after the amazing drumming of San Francisco Taiko Dojo), and most of the younger kids enter at Laguna, since they can’t make the full trek all the way from City Hall.

We are raising money to plant trees at and around Nora’s school, Rosa Parks Elementary, a San Francisco Public School. The schoolyard is all blacktop and chain link right now, and we’re working hard to change that. The city of San Francisco has put together this fantastic “buy a tree” program… the trees will be donated, installed, and cared for for 3 years by the city!

WE ACHIEVED OUR TREE GOAL, but you can still donate!

Dear Amazing Rosa Parks Green Team-

You have really outdone yourselves this time. In the last week, you have been able to raise $4800 towards your goal of 20 trees. That means you more than covered the cost of the initial batch. And the donations keep coming in; just in the past few hours someone from Redmond, WA donated another tree.

This has been an unparalleled success and has shown the organizers of the 2012 by 2012 Campaign (SFUSD, FUF, the Mayor’s Office, and the SF Green Schoolyard Alliance) what can be done at a school with an incredible parent base. I’m glad that the 2012 website and my offer to augment your efforts with District funding have helped to spur such an immense flurry of activity.

Now that you’ve reached 20 trees, Suzanne at FUF will be contacting you to schedule a planting date. As more donations come in, those will go toward your bigger goal of planting 30 trees. She can also talk to you about reaching out to the community and finding homeowners who would like to plant trees in front of their house.

Either way, come this fall, RP will have a new batch of trees to beautify the school and make kids feel well. Cheers to a job well done!

-Nik

Nik Kaestner
Director of Sustainability
San Francisco Unified School District

Creating a greener San Francisco, tree by tree! Tax deductible contributions to help plant 2012 new trees in and around SF schools by 2012. A program of SFUSD, in collaboration with Friends of the Urban Forest, SF Green Schoolyard Alliance, and the Mayor’s Office of Greening.

Teresa and Michael brought back these beautiful nesting dolls from Moldova… Nora loves them and has given them all names. The little tiny one in the very middle is called “Mimi” but the other names have been changing.

Dell had surgery to correct his deviated septum and remove a lipoma from the back of his head. It wasn’t pretty. If you want to see the gore, here are the pictures. Truly not for the faint of heart or stomach! I mean it!

We headed to the Merced County Fair for some fun and music. First there were corndogs, pony rides and cotton candy.

Then we met up with the Little Texas band and gang – Porter, Del, Duane, Dwayne, Mark, Jason and Donny. We got to be true groupies and hang out on the tour bus (thank god for A/C!). Nora got a signed pair of drum sticks from Del, and flirted with the guys.

Nora helped Jason sell stickers and t-shirts (she suggested “next time let’s sell MAKEUP too!”) in the schwag booth. She later commandeered a pair of earplugs, and used them for, well, nose plugs instead… whichever bandmember they came from, thank you and we threw them in the trash, so don’t worry!

The next day we hit the Castle Air Museum and saw the vintage airplanes. Very cool, but waaayyy too hot to be walking around 11 acres of metal planes. Made you think of the sacrifices that the soldiers made then and are still making today. God bless ’em!

Every three years, come ’round mid-July, Dell trades in his leased car for a new leased car. This time, we decided to go from a “crossover SUV” to a standard sedan… So, it was so long Infiniti FX35

And HELLO! Infiniti M35

This new car is totally bad ass! Push a button to start it, with no need to insert a key. Bluetooth enabled car phone. Rear view camera. Voice activated GPS. Heated and cooled seats (ah, that cool butt feeling). More gadgets and buttons than I know what to do with (but Dell knows what most of them do).

We will take it on its first road trip tomorrow. Heading up with the whole fam-damily to Merced. Gonna take in the county fair, and see Little Texas perform again. Nora gets to ride some rides, and Otto will sit his boo-hiney in the Vagabond Inn while we stroll the midway.

We spent Saturday night at our friends Brian & Carol’s house in Aptos, near Santa Cruz. The Dudley’s home is so comfortable, fun and relaxing.

Nora is about 8 months older than Camille, and the girls had a great time together playing dress-up, watching Dora, playing in the park, and coloring (there was lots of preschooler angst too). Baby Sophia (9 months old) was a gem, and is just sweet as pie.

We hit the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for a sunny Sunday stroll. The Daddys took Nora and Camille on the Log Ride – it was the first time for both the girls. Camille came off laughing, saying “I got drenched!” Nora, on the otherhand was clinging to Daddy, crying and sobbing. Different strokes… View all the photos on Flickr.

Ahhh, what a relaxing weekend! Sam and Bobbi Kotara joined us for Friday and Saturday at my parent’s ranch in Lakeport.

We left Nora & Otto with Joan and Ray while the four grown-ups did a Napa Valley weekend. Sunday was Mudbaths and Massages at Indian Springs Resort – we stayed in a room at the newly built “Lodge” section of the hotel. Just lovely!

Monday night was the Little Texas concert at the Napa County Fair. Dell’s best friend from high school, Porter Howell, is the lead singer/lead guitarist/songwriter for the band.Those boys were working on a few hours sleep, and they put on a ROCKIN show! Thanks to Porter, Dwayne, Duane, Del, and Mark (not pictured) for being “Loud and Proud!” We can’t wait for the new song “Texas 101” to come out so we can sing along… The drummer Del blew up a monitor (speaker) – smoke was coming out the top!